Because he’s too busy sucking techbro dick.

Yow.

That might just be the cringiest attempt at a meme I’ve ever seen.

If it’s a plotline that requires and rewards concentration, then, if I’m in the right mood, I can concentrate on it. And if it doesn’t require concentration, then it doesn’t matter - I can wander away for a while, then catch back up later.

Though admittedly one of the biggest reasons that I prefer watching movies at home is that I can rewind them when my attention has wandered too far for too long. And there are times when I just have to give up, because it’s not going to be possible to watch this movie now. And there are some movies that I never have managed to make it through.

Generally though…

I’m sure that’s not an accident but I doubt it was the point. She had (and likely still has) greater ambitions than that.

I suspect that this is why Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned - because Trump is petty and vindictive, and was sure to do everything he could - and everything he could cajole his rich cronies into doing - to destroy the Republicans who dared to try to make an issue of the fact that he’s a statutory rapist.

I’m not sure which half of that is worse really - the staggering number they’ve murdered in the last three years or the fact that it was only necessary to go back 17 more years to get a comparable number.

Yes - they’re murdering at a faster rate now, and that is utterly evil, but really they were just murdering at a somewhat slower rate before, and it’s been utterly evil all along.

To add to this:

There’s a fairly simple organic path to becoming a tankie (it’s also the path to anarcho-authoritarianism) - some number of people, and particularly notably young and impressionable ones, don’t invest the nevessary time and effort to fully wrap their heads around the necessary realities of a society truly without hierarchy and are too impatient to accept the fact that a stable classless society will almost certainly not come to be in the near future, and quite possibly not even within their lifetimes, and between the two, they just sort of jump to the conclusion that then the best (or even only possible) strategy is to claim the authority to institutionalize their desired system, completely failing to grasp the fact that institutionalizing it will immediately and permanently make it something other than what they claim to desire.

And from there on out, it’s just cognitive dissonance and compensatory behavior.

This is fucking creepy no matter what.

If it’s true, it’s creepy.

I don’t think it’s true though, which in a way is even creepier.

The basic problem here is that this whole western fascist, white-supremacist technofeudalism thing is entirely divorced from reality. There’s no logic, no morality, no philosophy - nothing but emotive gibberish slaved to the shallow self-interest of lunatics. So they just spew whatever lunatic garbage they spew, because their brains are broken and they can’t do anything else, and their followers just sop it up, because their brains are also broken and they can’t do anything else either.

There’s much to criticize about past ideologies and religions (which IMO are just two variations on the same basic theme). They did a lot of harm and included a lot of stupidity and lunacy, but at least they made an effort to have some sort of moral and/or logical underpinnings - to have something solid around which they were built.

This one though? There’s nothing at all there. There’s no central philosophy - no underlying morality - nothing. There’s just gibberish and poison and junk and sludge. And the broken-brained assholes spewing it and the broken-brained assholes sopping it up.

And the rest of us, unable to even wrap our heads around the sheer scale of the lunacy, scrolling day after day in a constant state of “What the fucking fuck?!”

So the US has been officially designated to be a client state of Israel - a mere tool serving Israeli interests.

Splitters.

Shame there aren’t any manly patriots in government now - just those candy-ass crybaby MAGA clowns. Back in the day, we used to call that bribery and people went to prison for it, but those weak-kneed MAGA pansies don’t have the guts to even say anything about it. All they’re good for is bowing and scraping and kissing flabby ass.

I propose that STEMbros be required to complete at least a Philosphy 101 course before they’re allowed to comment on “AI.”

I’m so fucking tired of utter nonsense from people who self-evidently don’t know even the first thing about consciousness or agency.

this research shows that AI agents struggle to perform simple tasks

They can’t “struggle” because “struggle” indicates intention and “AIs” don’t possess intentionality.

and often unintentionally sabotage users in the process.

Again, “AIs” are incapable of intentionality. They can neither “intentionally” nor “unintentionally” do anything - the entire concept is incoherent in this context.

In the study, Nvidia and Microsoft outlined three distinct kinds of blind goal-directed (BGD) activity it often saw in AI agents.

Just like intention, “blind” is incoherent in this context, since “AIs” don’t perceive anything, so they can be neither “blind” nor “sighted.”

They showed a lack of contextual reasoning

They are entirely incapable of reasoning of any form.

tend to make assumptions

They are entirely incapable of making assumptions

and incorrect decisions

They are entirely incapable of making decisions

Each of those three things are conscious acts, and AIs" are not in any way, shape or form conscious.

And note that this was written by a purported critic rather than a cheerleader, and those examples are from only one paragraph.

Even the critics can’t manage to comment on “AI” without demonstrating that they don’t have the foggiest fucking idea what they’re talking about.

Laura Jane Grace - Your God

This is a perfect moment to note:

Unlike socialism or capitalism, fascism does not stipulate a specific economic system. However, there are some qualities that are consistently found under fascist systems, chief among which are a sort of “revolving door” between government and business, such that leaders in one field exert influence or even hold positions in the other as well, the (not coincidental) broad concept that what’s good for business is automatically good for the country, and the socialization of investment, risk and loss, while keeping profits entirely private.

Or in other words, exactly what’s happening here.

With Trump taking the spoiled child lead.

Though that’s a role he plays every day.

Another day, another tantrum from the Toddler-in-Chief.

He really should actually be a great big baby in a saggy diaper, sitting in a high chair with a big sippy cup of Diet Coke and a bunch of blocks to make ballrooms and arches out of, alternately stuffing hamburgers in his face, wailing and crying and saying things like, “But I want Greenland!” and “Stephen Colbert is a big fat meanie!” pooping in his already stinky diaper and randomly falling asleep.

So pretty much exactly like he is now, just without the suit.

Think they’ll find anything wrong with Trump suing Trump’s IRS and then Trump’s Justice Department stepping in to negotiate a $1.8 billion “settlement” for Trump?

Yeah… me neither.

And certainly you can trust the word of a grossly unqualified sycophant.

Mmm… let me think on that a bit…

Well, that is the basis for Great Man Theory, more or less. And Trump is a sort of ass-backwards believer in Great Man Theory (ass-backwards because he starts from the narcissistic delusion that he’s the Great Man).

On the other hand though, I’ve noted before that political power, when you pull back a bit and look at it objectively, is largely illusory. It’s not necessarily that Trump or any other President has any notable intrinsic power, but that the office of PotUS is seen to have power, which is seen to be in the possession of whoever’s warming the chair in the Oval Office at the moment.

Without the trappings of office, Trump is just a gross, stinky old pederast who likely wouldn’t survive a day in the real world without at the least getting his flabby ass kicked.

That said, there is certainly, as Trump has vividly illustrated, a potentially very significant difference between the amount of power one or another politician might wield, even operating under the same auspices with more or less the same designated powers. And that’s certainly a personal difference.

But then in that context, it must be noted that an awful lot of Trump’s power exists only to the degree that the Congress and the Supreme Court are not exercising theirs, or when they are exercising it, more often than not in his favor (or more precisely, in the favor of the wealthy interests who are backing him).

It’s also worth noting that my view on that is that they’re not so much supporting Trump specifically as they are the establishment of an insurmountably powerful executive, since that will give them essentially “one-stop-shopping” for influence.

I’d have to say that yes, there is something to what you’re saying. But that’s not all of it because it’s more precisely the combination of the office and the person holding it. But viewing the office as a constant - this person in this office vs. this other person in the same office for instance, then yes - they would seem to be placing an awful lot of stock in individuals.

And in the course of that, I thought of another aspect of all of this too - one that infests political systems broadly. For many, and more all the time, winning control of an office is an end in itself. Even if they have plans beyond simply gaining control of the office, they appear to often be nebulous at best.

Or more specifically, as an example:

• Kidnap Maduro
• Install Rodriguez
• ???
• Profit!

For whatever that’s worth…

Much of the problem is very simple - they’re lazy and greedy.

And as is common with lazy and greedy people, they want to get what they want without having to work for it.

Dealing with all of the complexities of “institutions, class coalitions and social struggles” is more work than they’re willing to invest. Instead, they’re looking for a magic key - an insider, former official, elite or defector that they can flip to their side and instantly get everything they want without having to go to any additional trouble or effort.